Ralph Hotere
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1931, d.2013
Te Aupōuri,
Muriwhenua,
Māori
Aramoana - Drawing for a Black Window
- 1981
- Mixed media and photocopy on paper
- Purchased 1981
- Reproduced by permission of the Hotere Foundation Trust
- 560 x 760mm
- 82/08
Location: South Gallery
Tags: crosses (motifs), frames (furnishings), islands (landforms), landscapes (representations), natural landscapes, political art, pollution, seas, shores (landforms), windows, words
Ralph Hotere lived and worked in Kōpūtai Port Chalmers, not far from Aramoana, the site at the mouth of the Otago Harbour proposed for an aluminium smelter in the 1970s and early 1980s. Alongside several other artists, he protested. 'Aramoana – Drawing for a Black Window' includes a photograph of a sign announcing the future presence of the smelter that Hotere had vandalised, throwing black paint across it to render the text illegible. Set against a night view of the coastal landscape, Hotere crosses out the sign in red, while beneath the photograph a toxic spill of silver ink provides a warning of environmental damage.
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Exhibition History
Brought to Light: A New View of the Collection, February 2010 – February 2011
In his drawing for a ‘black window’, Ralph Hotere plays with language to pointed effect. Across a night view of the fragile coastal landscape at the mouth of Otago Harbour, Hotere writes the word ‘Aramoana’ backwards – as if to be read by someone outside. In the inset photograph in the foreground, a sign declaring the future presence of an aluminium smelter in this landscape has been vandalised with a splash of Hotere’s trademark black paint. Beneath it a toxic spill of silver ink provides a warning vision of environmental damage.
